Secret

Gu Shenwei believed this was a simple trick. The mastermind wanted to lure out a particular target. But judging by the number of prey that had followed the scent, there were far too many of them—possibly more than the hunter could have imagined or handled.

Five Golden Peng Assassins and five teenage assassins had come here on the Dragon King's orders to investigate before the second watch. Gu Shenwei had found them one by one and heard their reports. At least seven groups were lying in wait in the grass outside the fighting grounds, with anywhere from a handful to a dozen people each, for a total of seventy or eighty.

Gu Shenwei ordered the assassins to withdraw several li and set ambushes at two locations he had chosen. Then he headed back toward the trap alone.

As he traveled, Gu Shenwei couldn't help thinking that if Nie Zeng saw him putting himself in danger alone, the boy would probably be unhappy again. But the truth was simple: the Dragon King's martial arts were far superior to the teenager's, and more importantly, Gu Shenwei couldn't find a suitable partner.

No ordinary assassin could make up for He Nu's absence.

Gu Shenwei found the groups lying in wait. The assassins' judgment had been correct: the people didn't know one another, and their abilities varied widely. A few were so conspicuous that they seemed to have been planted as bait, while others were hidden so well that without the advance warning, Gu Shenwei would never have spotted them so quickly.

The seven groups were acting independently, with no coordination between them. If this was meant to be a ring of encirclement, it had plenty of gaps.

Gu Shenwei had arranged the two ambushes to plug those gaps—not all of them, just the